Lope de Vega

Lope de Vega (born Nov. 25, 1562, Madrid, Spain—died Aug. 27, 1635, Madrid) outstanding dramatist of the Spanish Golden Age, author of as many as 1,800 plays and several hundred shorter dramatic pieces, of which 431 plays and 50 shorter pieces are extant.

Life

Lope de Vega was the second son and third child of Francisca Fernandez Flores and Félix de Vega, an embroiderer. He was taught Latin and Castilian in 1572–73 by the poet Vicente Espinel, and the following year he entered the Jesuit Imperial College, where he learned the rudiments of the humanities. Captivated by his talent and grace, the bishop of Ávila took him to the Alcalá de Henares (Universidad Complutense) in 1577 to study for the priesthood, but Vega soon left the Alcalá on the heels of a married woman.

On his father’s death in 1578, the embroidery shop passed to the husband of one of the poet’s sisters, Isabel del Carpio. Vega later adopted the noble name of Carpio in order to give an aristocratic tone to his own. He acquired a humanistic education from his abundant though haphazard readings in erudite anthologies. In 1583 he took part in the Spanish expedition against the Azores.

By this time Vega had established himself as a playwright in Madrid and was living from his comedias (tragicomic social dramas). He also exercised an undefined role as gentleman attendant or secretary to various nobles, adapting his role as servant or panderer according to the situation. By this time, also, the poet’s life was already launched on a course of tempestuous passion. The “remote beauty” who took him from the Alcalá was followed by Elena Osorio, an actress of exceptional beauty and maturity. His romantic involvement with her was intense, violent, and marred by Vega’s jealousy over Elena’s liaison with the powerful gallant Don Francisco Perrenot de Granvelle, nephew of the cardinal de Granvelle. Finally, when Elena abandoned the poet, he wrote such fierce libels against her and her family that he landed in prison. The libel continued in a court case in 1588, which sent him into exile from Castile for eight years. In the middle of this incredible court scandal, Vega abducted Isabel de Urbina (the “Belisa” of many of his poems), the beautiful 16-year-old sister of Philip II’s earl marshal. They were forced to marry, and the new husband immediately departed with the Spanish Armada against England. On his return, he passed the remainder of his exile in Valencia, at that time a centre of considerable dramatic activity, and took to the serious writing of plays. Here, too, he engaged in writing romanceros, or ballad poetry, which had become fashionable. In 1590 he was appointed secretary to the duke of Alba, whom he followed to Toledo and then to the ducal estate at Alba de Tormes, where his wife died in childbirth in 1595. He auctioned off everything he owned and left for Madrid, where his public concubinage with the widow Antonia Trillo de Armenta caused him another lawsuit (1596).

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He had left the duke’s service in 1595, and in 1598 he went to the home of the marqués de Sarriá, with whom he remained until 1600. Sometime around 1595 he also met the illiterate and singularly beautiful actress Micaela de Luján, who was to be for nearly 20 years the poet’s most peaceful love; she was the “Camila Lucinda” of numerous magnificent verses composed for her by Vega. He took a second wife, Juana de Guardo, the daughter of a wealthy pork butcher, by whom he had two children, Carlos Félix and Feliciana. He was mercilessly pilloried by his literary enemies for such an opportunistic union.

Height of literary productivity

From 1605 until his death he remained a confidential secretary and counselor to the duke of Sessa, with whom he maintained a voluminous and revealing correspondence. In 1608 he was also named to a sinecure position as a familiar of the Inquisition and then prosecutor (promotor fiscal) of the Apostolic Chamber. By this time, Vega had become a famous poet and was already regarded as the “phoenix of Spanish wits.” In 1609 he published Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo (“New Art of Writing Plays in This Time”), a poetic treatise in which he defended his own plays with more wit than effectiveness.

In 1610, in the midst of full literary production—on the road to his 500 comedias—Vega moved his household definitively from Toledo to Madrid. In Madrid, Vega was afflicted by painful circumstances that complicated his life in a period when he was still very creative. Juana became ill, miscarried, and lived in precarious health under Vega’s constant care; Carlos Félix, his favourite son, also became ill and died, in 1612. Juana died in childbirth with Feliciana, and Micaela de Luján must also have died during that time, since Vega took into his own home the children remaining from this relationship, Marcela and Lope Félix, or Lopito.

These heartbreaks moved the poet to a deep religious crisis. In 1609 he entered the first of several religious orders. From this time on he wrote almost exclusively religious works, though he also continued his theatrical work, which was financially indispensable. In 1614 he entered the priesthood, but his continued service as secretary and panderer to his patron, the duke of Sessa, hindered him from obtaining the ecclesiastical benefits he sought. The duke, fearful of losing Vega’s services, succeeded in having one of the poet’s former lovers, the actress Lucia de Salcedo, seduce Vega. The duke thus permanently recovered his secretary. Vega thereafter became involved in new and scandalous romantic relationships. In 1627 his verse epic on the life and execution of Mary, queen of Scots, La corona trágica, which was dedicated to Pope Urban VIII, brought in reward a doctorate in theology of the Collegium Sapientiae and the cross of the Order of Malta, out of which came his proud use of the title Frey (“Brother”). His closing years were full of gloom. His last lover, Marta de Nevares, who shared his life from 1619 until her death in 1632, lost first her sight and then her sanity in the 1620s. The death at sea of his son Lope Félix del Carpio y Luján and the abduction and abandonment of his youngest daughter, Antonia Clara, both in 1634, were blows that rent his soul. His own death in Madrid in August 1635 evoked national mourning.